Topps Blog

Thursday, 6 February 2020

Xbox Chief: Amazon, Google Are the Greatest Threats the Xbox Faces

This console cycle hasn’t been kind to Microsoft or the company’s gaming ambitions. Lifetime sales of the Xbox One are estimated at 46.52M units according to VGChartz. Call it 50 million by the time the Xbox Series X comes out, and you’d still be 35.8M units short of the Xbox 360’s lifetime total.

Given the hammering MS has taken over the past seven years, you might expect that the company would be laser-focused on taking the fight to Sony with the upcoming Xbox Series X. If it is, someone forgot to tell Phil Spencer. Microsoft’s President of Gaming recently spoke with Protocol, where he had this to say about the future of gaming and where Microsoft believed the greatest threats to its own video game business will come from.

“When you talk about Nintendo and Sony, we have a ton of respect for them, but we see Amazon and Google as the main competitors going forward,” Spencer said. “That’s not to disrespect Nintendo and Sony, but the traditional gaming companies are somewhat out of position. I guess they could try to re-create Azure, but we’ve invested tens of billions of dollars in cloud over the years.”

Spencer said Microsoft was willing to cooperate with Nintendo and Sony on initiatives like allowing gamers on the various companies’ systems to play with and against one another. He added: “I don’t want to be in a fight over format wars with those guys while Amazon and Google are focusing on how to get gaming to 7 billion people around the world. Ultimately, that’s the goal.”

Spencer made these comments in the context of an article about how tech giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have increasingly monetized gaming or gaming-adjacent services. Amazon owns Twitch, Facebook has Oculus, Apple launched its Arcade service last year, and Google owns both Stadia and YouTube. That’s why he’s on the topic in the first place. But even with this context, Spencer’s comments are downright odd.

First of all, Sony bought Gaikai (a cloud gaming service) in 2012. It launched PlayStation Now in 2014, and it partnered with Microsoft to deliver the service in 2019. It’s a bit odd to see Spencer treating Sony as if the two companies weren’t already working together.

What’s a little more ominous is the reference to “traditional” gaming companies, as if Microsoft isn’t in the traditional gaming business now. After the debacle of 2013, I’d expect Microsoft to be emphasizing the Xbox Series X’s gaming capabilities. Media services, game sharing support, and streaming options are absolutely important to some of the console’s audience, but Microsoft blew the entire last generation by focusing on all of the wrong features of its new platform during the critical lead-up period.

At best, this feels like Spencer awkwardly shoehorning in mentions of Azure and cloud computing because under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has become a cloud-first company. At worst, it sounds like Microsoft once again misunderstanding what its own customers want. Game streaming services may be the future, but they’re not here yet. Nobody trusts Stadia. Nobody trusts Facebook. I genuinely want to see VR succeed, but the business market has been growing faster than the gaming side and Sony, not Facebook, has the largest VR ecosystem by deployed headsets. Many people in the United States cannot purchase the kinds of internet required to make flawless game streaming a viable replacement for local play.

Remember Crackdown 3?

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has made a lot of noise about the supposed advantages of cloud rendering and how it would make the Xbox One a better experience than anything the PS4 could offer.

Eurogamer did a major writeup on what happened to Crackdown 3 between 2013 and 2019. They conclude: “Looking back at the messaging of the time, it’s difficult to avoid a sense of hyperbole in the pitch, and whether it’s down to latency issues, varying levels of user bandwidth, or the sheer logistics of coping with a vast user base, cloud gaming as Microsoft defined it back in 2013 failed to happen.”

Microsoft has been discussing Project xCloud, its game service that leverages Azure’s back-end and allows gamers to take their titles to any device they want to play on — but again, this is the kind of feature that you’d explicitly expect to see the company mention as an advantage over Sony and the PS4. It’s an ecosystem play and potentially a good one, at least in areas with strong wireless connectivity. But the people most likely to subscribe to a service like xCloud are gamers already. xCloud could theoretically compete against the Switch for mobile-centric gamers who want the convenience of handheld play and the existing Sony / MS console space. The sorts of gamers who focus on Farmville and Facebook titles seem a genuinely poorer fit for the company’s projects.

I don’t want to slag Spencer, because I’m open to the idea that MS has some fundamental idea for better Azure integration than we’ve seen before, but I don’t think Google, Facebook, and Amazon are likely to represent Microsoft’s largest gaming competitors in 2020 or 2025, for that matter.

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2021 Cadillac Escalade: 38-Inch Display, Better Self-Driving

The 2021 Cadillac Escalade is shaping up as General Motors’ leading technology platform. Unveiled in Los Angeles and New York this week, the wow-factor feature is a 38-inch OLED display in front of the driver. The big SUV also has a raft of driver-assist and safety features standard or available, most notably the second generation of Super Cruise, the Level 2 autonomous driving that locates the car precisely on the road because Cadillac has lidar-mapped 200,000 miles of US and Canada highways.

The Escalade will also implement augmented reality in the form of a forward-facing camera that places the road-ahead view in the instrument panel and then overlays turn info onto the turning point. Expect the 2021 Escalade in the later part of 2020. It’s several inches longer than the outgoing Cadillac; we expect prices will start around $75,000.

The 2021 Escalade gets a curved OLED display (three modules, total width 38″), with augmented reality capabilities.

2021 Escalade: big grille, signature vertical front lighting strip.

The Escalade has been sold since late 1998; this will be the fifth generation. It’s no secret that the GMC Yukon / Yukon Denali and Chevrolet Silverado share a common chassis with the Escalade. Given that Denali is itself a high-end GM sub-brand, the Escalade is getting many luxury and technology treatments to a) justify its higher positioning and pricing versus Yukon/Suburban and b) keep at bay a resurgent Lincoln and its competing plus-size Navigator.

First of all, Cadillac made the 2021 Escalade bigger. The wheelbase is 4.9 inches longer (4.1 on the stretched Escalade ESV). The 2021 Escalade is 211 inches long (up 7.1 inches); the Escalade ESV is 226.9 inches long (up 2.1 inches). They are 81 inches wide and 76.6 inches tall. That’s big. The grille is honking big, especially. All this provides very comfortable second and third-row seating. Part of the third-row comfort comes from switching to an independent rear suspension, allowing for a lower floor.

The base Escalade is 211 inches long; the stretched Escalade ESV is 227 inches.

We have to explain a little bit about the 38.3-inch “total display area” OLED display, which is supplied by LG and is really three panels matched by LG for color fidelity. It is OLED, it is curved (slightly), and Cadillac requires the panels to have a 15-year service life, according to Craig Zinser, director of Cadillac’s infotainment division. (Early OLEDs had a limited service life.) It’s really three separate components:

A 7.2-inch (diagonal) touch panel on the left called a driver information center.
A 14.2-inch cluster display (main instrument panel) that sits in a frame in front of the other two displays.
A 16.9-inch infotainment panel in the center stack with standard onboard navigation.

The OLEDs are so bright, there’s no need for hoods or shading over the panels. The OLED panel segment above the center stack can be manipulated by touch or a control wheel. When your hand approaches the screen, the icons arrange themselves into a grid; otherwise, they’re in a circle for use by the control wheel, the shape matching the rotation of the wheel.

Infotainment is by AKG, a Harman sub-brand making its first-ever appearance as an automobile offering. The base audio system comprises 19 AKG speakers and an enclosed subwoofer; the big boy audio upgrades option takes it up to 36 speakers and lets the passenger set his/her own volume levels. Wireless charging and seven USB jacks come standard.

Cadillac will use augmented reality for some audio alerts. As the car gets closer to a turn, the voice prompt comes from that side of the speaker array, and the prompt increases in volume.

The cockpit of the 2021 Cadillac Escalade.

The standard engine is a 6.2-liter, 420-hp V8 with 17 “dynamic fuel management” patterns, meaning ways of shutting off cylinders when not needed. Optionally, Cadillac will offer a 3.0-liter V6 diesel with 277 hp and 460 pound-feet of torque and, Cadillac says, it will meet all emissions rules. It’s good to see somebody still has faith in diesels. Both will use 10-speed automatic transmissions. MPG numbers aren’t yet available.

Standard convenience and safety features include haptic feedback through a vibrating safety-alert seat instead of beeps, emergency and automatic emergency braking, front and rear pedestrian detection, and lane keep assist, plus surround vision cameras to provide a seeming-overhead view of the car as it moves at low speeds.

Other driver assists are not offered on the entry Escalade model called the Luxury, but they are standard on the four trim lines above: blind spot detection and rear cross-traffic alert, lane departure warning on top of the lane change alert, and a rear camera mirror embedded in the inside optical mirror.

Cadillac has sold 807,000 Escalades in the US since the first one shipped late 1998, with about 50,000-plus shipped each year 2003-2007. Numbers include the EXT pickup sold 2001-2014, amounting to as much as 27 percent of sales the EXT’s first four years. 2004 was the best sales year. The recent high point was 39,092 sales in 2016, followed by declines of 4, 2, and 4 percent the last three years.

Other features are optional on two middle trims, Premium Luxury and Sport, and standard on the upper crust Platinum Luxury and Platinum Sport models: Super Cruise, enhanced auto emergency braking, reverse automatic braking, and automatic seat-belt tightening (after you buckle up). Night Vision is optional on the top four lines.

Super Cruise is enhanced Level 2 self-driving, meaning the car lane-centers and paces the car ahead. Unlike other L2 vehicles, it uses lidar reference maps of major US highways to help the car know exactly where it is. (There is no onboard lidar on shipping Cadillacs.) The 2021 Super Cruise also does automatic lane changes after the driver flicks the turn signal to show intent.

The driver-assist offerings are solid on higher-end models. But it’s somewhat unusual that on a premium vehicle that blind spot detection and adaptive cruise control (if not Super Cruise) aren’t on all five trim lines, standard. GM recently announced it would migrate Super Cruise to 20 vehicles across the GM line, outside the Cadillac brand.

The Escalade can be had with four-wheel drive, air-ride suspension, adaptive shock absorbers (Magnetic Ride Control), and a premium trailer package that includes multiple rear-camera views (one lets the driver seemingly see through the trailer).

Filmmaker Spike Lee introduces the 2021 Cadillac Escalade after showing his short film “Anthem” Tuesday at the reveal in LA.

The Trumps in 2013 in NYC with GM’s then-head of design Ed Welburn.

The Escalade’s LA intro featured an appearance by Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Lee, and the event was just days before the Oscars ceremony. But back in 2013, it was the NYC reveal that made news of its own. Then, the special guests at the unveiling were New York businessman and book author Donald Trump and his wife, Melania. The event was at an exhibition space on 18th Street in Manhattan.

Trump in the 1980s had teamed with Cadillac to produce a custom limousine, heavy on gold trim inside, with a fax machine and paper shredder. Fifty Trump Edition limos were planned and two were built.

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Microsoft Reorganizes Windows Under Surface, Panos Panay

Microsoft is reorganizing several of its business units with the new year, with some significant changes slated for the Windows unit. The company is combining its Surface business with the Windows Experience team, creating a new unit: Device + Windows. Device + Windows will be headed by Panos Panay, who has previously overseen Surface development.

Mary Jo Foley broke the news and believes it’ll be a net improvement for Windows 10’s position within Microsoft. While Panay is not on Nadella’s Senior Leadership Team, his boss, Executive Vice President Rajesh Jha, is. Paul Thurrott agrees that this move could be positive for the Windows ecosystem, but has rather harsh words for the state of Windows as a whole. The OS has been systemically devalued by Nadella, who has openly declared that it’s “no longer the most important layer” at Microsoft, radically reorganized the OS dev team structure, and changed the company’s priorities. Windows is still the largest revenue driver at the company, but Nadella has made it clear he sees the future in the cloud.

Panos Panay

Thurrott writes that the pressure is now on Nadella to justify his “anti-Windows stance,” and that these changes represent at least a small acknowledgment that Microsoft tried to move past Windows too aggressively. The company hasn’t seemed to have a very cohesive Windows strategy in the past few years — it issues updates, yes, with new features and capabilities — but the closest thing to a cohesive Windows strategy is over on the Xbox side of the company, where Microsoft has been building cross-compatible services and creating an ecosystem with services like Xbox Game Pass. A lot of what we’ve covered in Windows recently has either been stories about reorganizations (intended to make certain the company ships fewer showstopping bugs with its regular releases) or about bug fixes and problems with new patches.

There’s a definite sense that OEMs and Microsoft’s existing business partners might not be happy with this move. Foley brings up the fact that organizing Windows under Surface emphasizes how Microsoft is in competition with its erstwhile partners, while Thurrot notes Panay was widely rumored to be seeking a job with Apple last year. Both, however, see the move as a net positive for Windows. Panay may not have Nadella’s ear directly, but this at least suggests Windows development is moving a little closer to the heart of Microsoft.

And Panay has done well with Surface. What began as a debacle with the failure of Surface RT now earns Microsoft about $4B per year in revenue. That’s not going to compete with the HP or Dell’s of the world any time soon, but it’s a tidy chunk of premium-PC cash that the company has built in less than a decade.

Top photo credit: Microsoft livestream

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Intel, AMD Both Claim Wins Based on New Market Share Data

Both AMD and Intel reported strong quarterly results at the end of 2019, with Intel setting multiple revenue records, and AMD hitting market share targets it hasn’t reached in years. It’s an excellent example of how the computing market isn’t necessarily a zero-sum game, and Dean McCarron, President of Mercury Research, has released some data on how the market has evolved for both companies.

AMD: Gaining Marketshare in All Segments

AMD and Mercury reported slightly different figures for AMD’s overall market share across desktop, laptop, and server. AMD’s figures exclude the impact of IoT and semicustom shipments, while Mercury includes them. That segment of the market includes AMD’s Xbox One and PS4 shipments, but the steep fall-off in console sales means AMD’s market share figures aren’t as strong as a result.

AMD is reporting very strong growth in all segments. Mercury reports Matisse has been a major success story for the company. Both Intel and AMD saw growth at the top of the market, where shipments increased faster than anywhere else.

Data by Dean McCarron, Mercury Research. Chart by ExtremeTech

The Mercury dataset agrees with AMD that it took additional market share and that the largest gains were in mobile. AMD and Mercury agree on its share of the mobile and server market. Desktop appears to be the only market where they differ, and that may be where the console sale drop-off gets factored in.

The data presented here supports AMD’s narrative that its products are being adopted by more OEMs and becoming more popular with customers.

Intel: Data Center Revenue Booms

If all the good market share news is on AMD’s side, why is Intel also sitting pretty? The answer is: Data centers. Intel’s DCG had a mammoth Q4, logging 18 percent year-on-year growth as cloud providers began buying hardware again. Mercury has data suggesting Intel shipped a much higher number of CPUs into the server market in Q4 2019 than previously.

Gaming and server shipments grew 10 percent in Q4 overall, and that boost in volume demand benefited Intel more in absolute terms than it did AMD, given the former’s higher market share. Demand for Intel’s Core i9 solutions was strong in both gaming and mobile.

Intel has recently been emphasizing its desire to expand into markets beyond the typical PC space and has been making major acquisitions in AI. Building its cloud and data center business is critical to the company’s long-term plans, and driving 18 percent revenue in that segment is a huge win for Intel. Giving up 0.2 percent of server market share, in that context, isn’t something Intel is going to miss.

The point to draw out of these metrics is that both companies have a positive story to tell. Both growth stories can simultaneously be true.

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Wednesday, 5 February 2020

Huawei Subsidiary Distributes 0-Day Backdoor in DVRs, NVRs, IoT Cameras

One issue that’s been of increasing concern to US companies and customers is the fear that Chinese companies will create hard-wired backdoors into the various networking and 5G products they sell in Western markets. Such backdoors could then be exploited for corporate espionage or government surveillance.

Thus far, the evidence for this kind of deliberate backdooring has been mixed. A damning report by Bloomberg last year — one that I initially believed — faded into confused questions over whether the company had accurately reported the situation, along with disagreements over whether the backdoor as described was even technologically possible. A UK report on Huawei’s security practices last year found ample evidence of sloppy coding and poor version control, but turned up no sign of corporate or government backdoors aimed at allowing a coordinated surveillance campaign.

Now, a new report by Vladislav Yarmak explains how Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon has integrated a firmware backdoor into the SoCs it sells to various companies that build digital video cameras (DVRs), network-connected video recorders (NVRs), and other various devices. The backdoor is integrated into the SoC firmware, which means it gets deployed anywhere the SoC is. According to Yarmak, this backdoor has been deployed in at least three different versions since 2013.

Here’s Yarmak:

Earliest known versions of it had telnet access enabled with a static root password which can be recovered from firmware image with (relatively) little computation effort… More recent firmware versions had telnet access and debug port (9527/tcp) disabled by default. Instead they had open port 9530/tcp which was used to accept special command to start telnet daemon and enable shell access with static password which is the same for all devices…

Most recent firmware versions have open port 9530/tcp listening for special commands, but require cryptographic challenge-response authentication for them to be committed.

In other words, the backdoor implementation has become more sophisticated over time. There is a known set of logins and passwords that the hardware will accept for authentication. This bug affects a wide number of brands and models of hardware. So far, all of this sounds pretty bad.

Is This a Deliberate Attack Attempt?

There are reasons to believe this issue is more indicative of bad security practices at Huawei than a deliberate attempt to backdoor hardware. For one thing, the attack only works over a local network. In an update at the end of his post, Yarmak writes:

Other researchers and habr users had pointed out such vulnerability is restricted to devices based on Xiongmai (Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology Co, XMtech) software, including products of other vendors which ship products based on such software. At this moment HiSilicon can’t be held responsible for backdoor in dvrHelper/macGuarder binary.

And that undercuts the idea that this is something Huawei or HiSilicon was specifically and particularly trying to do. It doesn’t let them off the hook — vendors should conduct audits of the code they ship, and Huawei is specifically dealing with perceptions that it works too closely with the Chinese government already.

It’s very difficult to tell the difference between bad security practices and deliberate efforts to build a backdoor. What’s more serious, as Yarmak discusses, is that this isn’t the first or even second time this issue has been reported to Huawei. The entire reason he issued a zero-day report is that Huawei hasn’t previously been responsive to fixing the problem.

From a customer perspective, it seems wise to give Huawei equipment a wide berth, whether the company is spying for the Chinese government or not.

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ET Early Amazon Presidents’ Day Sale: Echo Dot, Echo Buds, Echo Show, Kindle

Presidents’ Day is still a few weeks off, but this year Amazon is kicking off its deals early. Today you can get several of Amazon’s smart devices with large discounts.

Amazon 3rd Gen Echo Dot ($29.99)

Amazon’s Echo Dot smart speaker comes with the company’s Alexa virtual personal assistant built-in, which is able to hear and obey numerous voice commands. In addition to being a speaker for listening to music, it also works as a hands-free device for making phone calls and it can control other devices that support Alexa as well. Right now, you can get a 3rd generation Echo Dot from Amazon marked down from $49.99 to just $29.99.

Amazon Echo Buds ($89.99)

Amazon created its Echo Buds to compete against the likes of Apple’s AirPods and Samsung’s Galaxy Buds. Just like these other devices, the Echo Buds are entirely wireless, and they also can last for up to 5 hours on a single charge. Today Amazon is running these high-tech earbuds on sale with a $40 discount, which drops the price from $129.99 to $89.99.

Amazon Echo Show 8 ($89.99)

Amazon’s Echo Show 8 features an 8-inch HD display and is compatible with a wide range of Amazon- and Alexa-enabled services. It can work as a display for home security devices like Ring’s video doorbell, and it can be used for calling people and numerous other functions. Today you can get one of these versatile and useful devices marked down from $129.99 to $89.99.

Kindle Paperwhite 8GB + 3-Months Kindle Unlimited ($94.99)

Amazon’s Kindle Paperwhite is rated IPX8 waterproof, which means it can spend up to an hour submerged under two meters of water and continue to work. This model also has 8GB of storage space, giving you plenty of room to hold countless books. As a special offer, Amazon is offering this device, which typically retails for $129.99, for just $94.99. It also comes with a three-month subscription to Kindle Unlimited, which makes it an excellent deal.

Featured Deals

Echo Dot 3rd Gen Smart Speaker for $29.99 at Amazon (list price $49.99)
Echo Buds Wireless Bluetooth 5.0 Earbuds with Bose Active Noise Reduction for $89.99 at Amazon (list price $129.99)
Kindle 4GB 6″ WiFi eReader with Special Offers and 3 Months Kindle Unlimited for $64.99 at Amazon (list price $89.99)
Kindle Paperwhite 8GB 6″ Waterproof WiFi eReader with Special Offers and 3 Months Kindle Unlimited for $94.99 at Amazon (list price $129.99)
Deco Gear DGVIEW490 49″ 3840×1080 144Hz FreeSync Curved LED Gaming Monitor for $649.99 at PCMag Shop (list price $899.95)
Echo Show 5 5.5″ Smart Display for $64.99 at Amazon (list price $89.99)
Echo Show 8 8″ HD Smart Display for $89.99 at Amazon (list price $129.99)
Echo Dot with Clock 3rd Gen Smart Speaker for $39.99 at Amazon (list price $59.99)
Echo 3rd Gen Smart Speaker for $74.99 at Amazon (list price $99.99)
Echo Show 2nd Gen 10″ HD Smart Display + Philips Hue Bulb for $179.99 at Amazon (list price $259.98)
Echo Plus 2nd Gen Smart Speaker + Philips Hue Bulb for $119.99 at Amazon (list price $179.98)
Dell XPS 13 9380 Intel Core i3-8145U 13.3″ 1080p Laptop for $599.99 at Dell (use code: LTXPS135AFF – list price $899.99)
Dell XPS 15 7590 Intel Core i9-9980HK 8-Core 15.6″ 4K Touch Laptop with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD for $2199.99 at Dell (list price $2699.99)

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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Microsoft Azure Experts Are Earning Big. Join Their Ranks With These Training Courses

Don’t look now, but even “The Street” is starting to notice a surge in momentum behind Microsoft’s Azure cloud business. Wall Street investors got bullish on Microsoft last month after a very healthy earnings report featuring a big uptick in revenue from the Azure cloud unit.

That’s just the latest encouraging sign from the Washington tech giant’s challenge to Amazon’s AWS cloud computing supremacy. With Azure cloud architects pulling down anywhere from $130,000 to $170,000 a year, now’s the time to train up with resources like The Complete 2020 Microsoft Azure Certification Prep Bundle ($42.90, over 90 percent off).

This collection is truly massive, including 11 courses with over 50 hours of instruction on everything you need to know about building, nurturing and protecting a network, site or app of virtually any size or shape on the Azure platform.

This coursework works you through the Azure basics, then shows you how to get a system infrastructure in place, how to shield your data from attack and the best ways to find solutions to any of your network issues.

With each course you pass, you’re a step closer to acing four vital Microsoft-endorsed certification exams, tests that will prove your skills and show you’re equipped to take on a six-figure role as an Azure administrator.

The entire package is a $2,000 value, so get in on this offer before it ends to get everything for less than $4 per course.

Note: Terms and conditions apply. See the relevant retail sites for more information. For more great deals, go to our partners at TechBargains.com.

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